on Diplomacy & Warfare ·
George Miller 19m

Did you know Russia used hypersonic missiles in Ukraine for the first
time? How effective are these missiles?

Russia consistently releases propaganda videos about high tech weapons
(as the Soviet Union did before its breakup). These have been useful for
projecting an image of power to the world and intimidating the West.

The truth is that Russia is a very poor country. They often develop
prototypes of weapons systems and then try to market them to other
countries. If they can get overseas sales they can then fund to actually
produce these weapons systems. They certainly don’t have the funds to
maintain advanced weapons systems and train soldiers in their use.

As the Russo-Ukraine war has demonstrated, the Russian military is in
terrible condition. They have very few of the high-tech weapons they had
led the world to believe they had; they don’t seem to have any precision
guided munitions left and are using World War 2 - style “dumb” bombs.
They don’t have enough fuel trucks. Most of their tanks are ancient.

The Russians prototype hypersonic missile has served its purpose by
impressing the world when it was tested. They can’t afford to actually
produce the things. There is no fleet of Russian hypersonic weapons and
probably never will be.

Russia’s economy is no larger than Belgium and the Netherlands combined,
and with the West’s sanctions, Russia will be lucky if they can keep up
with just one of these countries.

I think that in the coming year, Russia will be worrying more about
having enough potatoes than building hypersonic weapons.

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2 comments from
Janet Shaw
and more

---------------------
and a repeat, very informative!
view it at:

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-94-trillion-world-economy-in-one-chart/

On 3/19/2022 8:53 AM, a425couple wrote:
> on Diplomacy & Warfare ·
> George Miller   19m
>
> Did you know Russia used hypersonic missiles in Ukraine for the first
> time? How effective are these missiles? --
>
> The truth is that Russia is a very poor country. They often develop
> prototypes of weapons systems and then try to market them to other
> countries. If they can get overseas sales they can then fund to actually
> produce these weapons systems. They certainly don’t have the funds to
> maintain advanced weapons systems and train soldiers in their use.
>
> As the Russo-Ukraine war has demonstrated, the Russian military is in
> terrible condition. They have very few of the high-tech weapons ----
>
> ---------------------
> and a repeat, very informative!
> view it at:
>
> https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-94-trillion-world-economy-in-one-chart/
>
>
More opinions
along same idea --

Truth About Russia ·
Answered by
Mats Andersson
Tue

How plausible are the western media claims that Putin has gone mad, the
invasion has been stopped by Ukrainian fighters and the implication that
soon they will be driven back to Russia?

Originally Answered: How plausible are the western media claims that
Putin has gone mad, the invasion has been stopped by Ukrainian fighters
and the implication that soon they will be driven back to Russia? It
seems less than believable to me. Ukraine is likely doomed.

1.
Putin is not “mad”. He is acting rationally, but on information that has
been supplied to him by people who are telling him what he wants to
hear. And we’re not talking ordinary sycophants here: those are people
whose main qualification is that they are good at telling him what he
wants to hear.

The end result is, predictably, that he invaded Ukraine relying on a map
of Mordor. It’s the trap every dictator builds for themselves. It’s why
democracies will always, in the long run, outperform dictatorships, even
the comparatively “soft” dictatorship Putin was running up until he end
of February: democracy contains error-checking mechanisms that always
adjust it due reality.

And this is, of course, why Putin has been acting a bit odd lately: he
is under enormous pressure, since he’s failing on all fronts, and he
knows he’ll be deposed—and probably later assassinated—unless he
succeeds. And by now, he has become aware of how badly deceived he has
been by his people—the people that he actually demanded that they should
tell him lies. There is simply no way from where he is to a
non-disastrous end result, and he’s slowly realising it.

But “mad”? No. Just so woefully misinformed that he might as well have been.

2.
The invasion is indeed going badly. A huge part of this is fierce
resistance by the Ukrainians; it seems they were less than happy with
Putin’s announcement that they don’t actually exist. Another part is the
faulty information mentioned above. Specifically, it seems clear now
that Putin had been fed total lies about the state of the Russian
military: in all likelihood, huge amounts of money had been lost in
corruption, and then, all equipment was reported as in perfect working
order although it hadn’t been maintained for ages or possibly never even
existed in the first place. Since no one expected that the equipment was
ever going to be used, who would ever notice?

Another part is that the Russian military doesn’t actually seem to be
any good at what they do. Western observers are stunned at the abysmal
communications—including the fact that they can listen in to the
communications at all. And this is right funny. I was one of the
Listeners in the Swedish Army in the mid-1980s, and it seems like the
Russian encryption protocols and procedures are way behind what we had
back then. Our instructions were based on the assumption that the
Soviets could do whatever we could do, but a bit better; this was
obviously not so. The Russian tactics are equally abysmal. And worst of
all, their logistics suck—and wars are won and lost on logistics. Their
logistics are so totally crap that even I could do it better, and I’m a
fucking translator. They’re running out of food, for the love of Mary,
Jesus and the donkey he rode in on. Their soldiers are reduced to
pillaging supermarkets.

Another huge factor is morale. The Ukrainians are fighting for their
very survival; Putin has announced clearly that he doesn’t accept that
there is such a thing as Ukrainians. The Russians, on the other hand,
were either told that they would be hailed as liberators, or told that
they ere going on an exercise. It’s rather harrowing to instead be
attacked with weapons by all and sundry, and be verbally abused by
grandmothers. Even the street signs all read “Fuck off”. And on a more
philosophical level, ever Russian soldier is now asking themselves this:

If they are Russians, why are we killing them?
If they are not Russians, why are we here in the first place?

3.
No one is claiming that they will “soon be driven back to Russia”. What
is happening, what will likely happen sooner rather than later, is the
same thing as happened to Germany in WWI. Their troops were still all
outside the 1914 borders, and yet, they had to surrender unconditionally.

Why? Economics. The German economy had collapsed by the summer of 1918,
hunger was spreading, they could no longer feed or equip the troops, and
they had the choice between surrendering in something resembling good
order, or have everyone starve and a Communist revolution on top of
that. They surrendered with the total collapse of their troops imminent.

Similarly, Russia is now rapidly becoming as isolated as North Korea.
They have fewer flights into the country than they had at the peak of
the Cold War, and they are flying domestically with aircraft that should
be grounded due to lack of safety certification, and which they will be
unable to service and maintain in days or weeks. They are going to
default on the sovereign debt tomorrow, as I type this, and they only
way they will be able to pay state salaries and pensions will be by
printing money, causing an already bad inflation to spiral out of
control, eradicating savings. Companies are closing down all over, and
by next pay day, people will start to run out of money.

In contrast, Ukraine is having money flood in from sympathetic
governments, and their military is being equipped by friendly countries.

As they said in a US election campaign:

“It’s the economy, stupid.”

23.6K viewsView 1,087 upvotesView 1 shareSubmission accepted by
Dimitri Vulis
54 comments from
Martin Spamer
and more

Maurizio Mailano
· Thu
Good analysis

Still I am not that sure of

“It’s why democracies will always, in the long run, outperform
dictatorships, even the comparatively “soft” dictatorship Putin was
running up until he end of February: democracy contains error-checking
mechanisms that always adjust it due reality”

China is the perfect example of learning from the mistakes Russia did.
The “democratic” phase that Russia experienced in the 90s was, de facto,
a nightmare that no Russians (except maybe todays oligarchs) want to
face again. Freedom w/o a strong gov led to anarchy and astonishing
level of corruption.

What matters most is the economy and/or the perception of being wealthy.
In this respect, Chinese have a big advantage over western (especially
European) countries. While here young people know that they will not
have any of the economic benefits (welfare, secured jobs, …. ) their
parents had, this is still true in China. Democracy in its purest
declination can lead to immobility, with politicians more interested in
pleasing voters rather than deciding (taking the risk of not being
re-elected). “Dictatorship” (or if you like countries driven by only one
Party) can decide in one-night closing up entire Provinces if they think
this is the right choice (see pandemic containment).

THe real problem of Russia is its “old-style” economy (oil/gas, minerals
and food products and raw materials for their production) while China
export tech, is the industry of the world and (top of all) it owns a
huge part of western Bonds bought with the very same money we gave them
to buy products we delocalized there.

The real problem of Russia is not that it is a soft dictatorship
(definitely more democratic than Gulf nations and, sorry for the Chinese
friends, of China), but in having spoiled their economy so that lot of
people still think that they had a better life (and self-esteem) during
soviet age than today.

Angela Birch
· Tue
This reminds me of the USSRs failure in Afghanistan which contributed to
the dissolution of the USSR

Roger Kinnard
· Tue
Things were going fine until Putin decided to invade. I expected him to
merely recognize Donbas.

Most of the money for modernizing the army was stolen, but Putin is a
thief and should have understood what was happening.

Zina Zahn
· Wed
Conmen never believe they are capable of being conned as well, lol.

"a425couple" wrote in message news:U6oZJ.67680$dln7.8606@fx03.iad...

> https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-94-trillion-world-economy-in-one-chart/

The GDP of Brazil is the same as Russia's, Canada's, Italy's and South
Korea's are larger.

Elon Musk should be on there somewhere.

On 3/19/2022 10:09 AM, a425couple wrote:
> On 3/19/2022 8:53 AM, a425couple wrote:
>> on Diplomacy & Warfare ·
>> George Miller   19m ---
>>
>> The truth is that Russia is a very poor country. They often develop
>> prototypes of weapons systems and then try to market them ---
>>
>> ---------------------
>> and a repeat, very informative!
>> view it at:
>>
>> https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-94-trillion-world-economy-in-one-chart/
>>
>>
> More opinions
> along same idea --
>
> Truth About Russia ·
> Answered by
> Mats Andersson
> Tue ---
>
> 1.
> Putin is not “mad”. He is acting rationally, but on information that has
> been supplied to him by people who are telling him what he wants to
> hear. And we’re not talking ordinary sycophants here: those are people
> whose main qualification is that they are good at telling him what he
> wants to hear. ---
>
> 2.
> The invasion is indeed going badly. A huge part of this is fierce
> resistance by the Ukrainians; it seems they were less than happy with
> Putin’s announcement that they don’t actually exist. Another part is the
> faulty information mentioned above. Specifically, it seems clear now
> that Putin had been fed total lies about the state of the Russian
> military: in all likelihood, huge amounts of money had been lost in
> corruption, ----
>
> Another huge factor is morale. ---
> every Russian soldier is now asking themselves this:
> If they are Russians, why are we killing them?
> If they are not Russians, why are we here in the first place?
>
> 3.
> No one is claiming that they will “soon be driven back to Russia”. What
> is happening, ---
>
> As they said in a US election campaign:
>
> “It’s the economy, stupid.”
>
> Maurizio Mailano
>  · Thu
> Good analysis
>
> Still I am not that sure of
>
> “It’s why democracies will always, in the long run, outperform
> dictatorships, even the comparatively “soft” dictatorship Putin was
> running up until he end of February: democracy contains error-checking
> mechanisms that always adjust it due reality”
>
> China is the perfect example of learning from the mistakes Russia did.
> ----
>
> Angela Birch
>  · Tue
> This reminds me of the USSRs failure in Afghanistan which contributed to
> the dissolution of the USSR
>
> Roger Kinnard
>  · Tue
> Things were going fine until Putin decided to invade. I expected him to
> merely recognize Donbas.
>
> Most of the money for modernizing the army was stolen, but Putin is a
> thief and should have understood what was happening.
>
> Zina Zahn
>  · Wed
> Conmen never believe they are capable of being conned as well, lol.
>
>
>
More opinions along similar line:

Scott Welch
Hypothetically knowledgeable.Mar 8

Can you give an unbiased opinion/take of what the next month will be
like for the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
I’m unbiased because I know almost nothing about military affairs.

I do, however, know about bit about three things:

Logistics
Communication
Economics
I think that today, March 8 2022, Russia is absolutely doomed.

Let’s start with military logistics. Russia went into this war woefully
unequipped from a logistics standpoint. Both soldiers and equipment were
minimally supplied, and they already, after just two weeks, have troops
who are running out of food, ammunition, and fuel. Their supply lines
are highly exposed to opportunistic attacks, and even that presupposes
that the supplies are available in Russia.

This is exacerbated by the Russian’s poor communication infrastructure.
Their invasion force is primarily equipped with short-range VHF radios,
with a range of about 20 to 30 km. In many cases, they are using
consumer-grade Baofeng radios, not much different than you can buy at
Costco. While they do have longer-range radios, these are 1970s era
HF-SSB radios, which are highly unreliable and offer no digital
connectivity.

This means that not only is there no effective intra-division
communication, there is also no effective communication back to the
Moscow HQ, so many units are effectively freelancing. The lack of
effective digital connectivity means that there is no way to manage
logistics for the forces already in Ukraine. As a result, Russia is
using a “push” logistics model, where they a simply sending what they
think the units need, and not what they actually need.

When you combine this with the lack of forward repair depots, it becomes
more understandable that Russian troops are simply abandoning vehicles
when they run into problems.

But that is but a fraction of the logistics nightmare Russia faces.

As I have written about already, the Russian domestic air transport
system will be effectively grounded by the end of April. There will be
fewer than 50 airworthy jets in the entire country.

Russia is also cut off from all western technology and trade. That
includes all Russian-flagged air travel, all sea freight, all air
ticketing systems, all courier services, and all servicing of avionics
and related services. All major technology vendors including Microsoft,
Oracle, and Amazon are shutting down their support organizations. All
western industrial suppliers (Caterpillar, Deere, General Electric, etc.
etc. etc.) are embargoed.

It is difficult for the layperson to understand just how complex modern
infrastructure has become. Something like a pipeline might have hundreds
of thousands of computerized controllers, tens of thousands of control
valves and fittings, and thousands of giant compressors, backup
generators, and so on. Those all can and do fail. The difference is that
now Russia will have no money to buy parts, no way to buy them, no way
to get them to where they are needed, and no skilled technicians to
install them.

This is going to hit first in the cities. Modern cities are remarkably
fragile things. They have maybe a week or two of food and fuel, and
maybe a few months of fresh water. All of that depends on absolutely
reliable electrical power (and in the winter, natural gas). As some of
the infrastructure starts to break down, we will see an exodus out of
the cities and into the countryside. The only saving grace is that they
are entering the summer, so people won’t be freezing to death.

As we say in the software industry, they are fucked.

I give them until the end of June before we see a wholesale collapse of
the Russian economy.

I’ll leave you with these observations from a friend of mine in Russia:

Chinese nationals are spotted throughout Moscow . They are not tourists
who tend to travel in large rowdy groups. They speak Russian and
believed to partake in fire sales as businessmen sell everything to flee
the country.

I also observed that young Russian girls hook up with Chinese guys. I
guess they are not keen on dating maimed soldiers or drunk warmongers.

12.3K viewsView 217 upvotesView 2 shares
40 comments from

On 3/19/2022 11:35 AM, Jim Wilkins wrote:
> "a425couple"  wrote in message news:U6oZJ.67680$dln7.8606@fx03.iad...
>
>> https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-94-trillion-world-economy-in-one-chart/
>>
>
> The GDP of Brazil is the same as Russia's, Canada's, Italy's and South
> Korea's are larger.
>

Yes, rather amazing.
Quite a bit smaller than Germany, UK, France
and even Italy.
Even Brazil is close.
And South Korea, should cause them some shame.

While India has many mouths to feed, it's also larger.

> Elon Musk should be on there somewhere.
>
Heh, Heh!